Devils earn highest wage in world soccer

Manchester United pay the highest wages in world football, according to the latest edition of the Global Sports Salaries Survey.

Average basic first-team pay at the Premier League club has been calculated at a moerse £5.77m a year or £110 962 per week.

United are ranked fourth in the overall sporting pay league behind the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, which pays an average annual salary of $8.7 million, baseball’s New York Yankees ($7.68 million) and another NBA team, the LA Clippers ($7.65 million).

The survey is based on the reported pay of almost 10 000 sportsmen at 333 teams in seven sports and is published on the sportingintelligence.com website.

Barcelona are the second highest football payers with an average annual salary of £5.65m, followed by Manchester City £5.4m.

Last year, United were ranked below City, but United’s £145m close-season transfer splurge, which saw the arrivals of the world’s most expensive footballer Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, have inflated their wage bill.

Graphic by Daily Mail

The two Manchester clubs are the only Premier League teams in the overall sporting top 30, with Chelsea (34), Arsenal (47) and Liverpool (60) lagging well behind American sports teams.

The Premier League remains the most lucrative global football league, with an average first-team pay of £48766 per week.

Further increases are expected after the Premier League agreed domestic and global television deals worth around £8 billion for 2016-19.

Elsewhere in Europe, Bayern Munich are German football’s best payers, with Juventus topping the league in Italy.

But China has emerged as a financial force with the survey saying that five of the 14 best paid players in the world are contracted there.

Cristiano Ronaldo remains the world’s best paid footballer on the equivalent of £365 000.

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